


The Cleansing Fire

by disalae



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-24
Updated: 2012-04-24
Packaged: 2017-11-04 07:02:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/391089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disalae/pseuds/disalae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Priority: Thessia. Shepard deals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cleansing Fire

Too many lights, too much noise.

Purgatory isn’t Kaidan’s kind of place, not by a long shot. The lights are muted and purple but he still feels like he’s being hit by flashbangs left and right, the music is…well, it’s appropriate for the locale, he guesses, but not his thing, and if he gets hit by one more person trying to push past him to the bar he’s seriously concerned about his ability to hold back his biotics.

No, it’s not his kind of place. But it’s _Shepard’s_ kind of place, at least when she’s like this – angry; in mourning; upset. Because when Shepard is upset she doesn’t cry, she drinks and dances and fucks and forgets, and he figures if she’s going to do it with someone, it’d better be him.

“Major,” she drawls like a damn cowboy when he slides up next to her at the bar. “What’re you drinking?”

Kaidan takes a look down at the array of empty shot glasses in front of her, some tipped lazily on their sides. Damn, she’s been busy. “Well, whatever you’re drinking, Commander.”

Her laugh is too loud, but it’s drowned out by the music. “Then you’d better start catching up.”

No shots for him; someone’s got to get her home. “I’ll just have a whiskey soda, then.”

“The excitement never ends with you, Alenko,” she chastises with a grin (and he knows she doesn’t mean it, but), before she turns and starts waving down the bartender.

The drink is way too strong, so he takes his time on it. Shepard has ordered something fizzy and pink, strangely enough, and is sucking it down through the tiny stirring straws. She’s been out on the dance floor for at least an hour, lost to him in the crowd and only surfacing to throw back more booze. Her makeup (what little she’s wearing) is smudged under her eyes, and there’s a line of sweat trailing down from the middle of her shoulder blades to the small of her back.

“Dance with me?” she finally asks, sitting her empty glass on the bar as she grabs at his to do the same, and of all of the things that aren’t his style, that is –

But in the end it’s what she wants, and needs. ‘Cause right now she’s not okay, hasn’t been okay since they got back from Thessia, and so far there’s nothing he’s been able to do, not really. The least he can offer her is his hand, which she takes with a buzzed, lopsided smile.

The middle of the dance floor is where she yanks him to, surrounded by gyrating members of every council race and then some. The music is coming from all around them, though it seems to be originating from an alcove in the corner where an asari in neon face paint is twisting and pushing on various knobs, dials and holo screens, a set of delicate omni-style headphones resting on her ears.

“I like this song,” Shepard says to no one and everyone, swaying back and forth to the beat. He joins her as best he can, but there’s not a person in the galaxy that’d ever call him a good dancer. “What do you think?”

It’s not his style. “It’s great.”

“Don’t lie to me,” she snaps, her voice taking on an edge he’d hoped to never hear directed at him again. Despite her tone, however, she moves a bit closer to him, her fingers ghosting at his obliques. “Don’t lie to me, and don’t—don’t patronize me.”

Kaidan puts his hands on her ribs to keep her from swaying. “I’m not trying to…” he pauses, breaks eye contact for a moment and looks over at the asari DJ who has dialed back the music to barely more than a drone, a hum, before his eyes snap back to her. “It’s not your fault, you know that right? You did everything you could.”

The beat drops, hard, and he’s pretty sure she doesn’t believe that because he feels her quake under his hands. “I can’t even look at her. Real good commander I am.” She seems to roll something around in her head before she speaks again, barely more than a mumble. “Real good _friend_.”

Her, of course, being Liara. Liara who has yet to even move from her quarters since they returned, who has half of the crew with twisted tongues and talking only in whispers because no one knows how to approach her. Garrus and Kaidan and Shepard may have started to lose their homeworlds, but at least there’s still a chance. Thessia, though…

In the end, Shepard has been able to help everyone but them, and that doesn’t _happen_. Not to her.

So she drinks. And forgets.

“You are,” he offers, as helpfully as he can because what the hell else can he do? She’s pressed against him now, arms wrapped lazily around his waist and her chin resting on his shoulder. “You’ll figure it out, you always do. She’ll be okay, you’ll be okay.”

She hums like she agrees, and he can feel the vibrations against his jaw. “Can we just go home?”

Okay, alright. That he can do.

**

They’re barely inside her cabin before she shoves him against the wall, and the crash of his body against hers feels like being amped.

“The bed, now,” Shepard groans against his lips, her hands scrambling for purchase against the buckle of his pants. Behind them one of her fish crashes over and over into the glass, the tiny _tap-tap-tap_ like the ticking of a clock.

They’ve gone through dancing and drinking, and now it seems they’ve reached stage three.

And it’s not that he doesn’t want to, because of _course_ he wants to, it’s just, “Shepard, you’re…” he looks down at her, covered in sweat and smelling of booze. He can’t help but let out a small laugh. “You’re wrecked. Are you sure you’re alright?”

Her hand grabbing his crotch wasn’t exactly the response he was expecting, but close. “I’m fine, lieutenant.”

Kaidan pulls back a bit to look at her, his voice playful. “Hey now, that’s—”

“I know, I know,” she interrupts, her voice sounding surprisingly sober. Sad, even. She leans against him, gives him a soft, slow kiss as her hands run through his hair, before breaking it off and pressing her cheek against his. “Things were easier back then.”

He’s not really sure anything’s ever been _easy_ with them, but he nods anyway. In response she laughs, a guffaw of a thing, and stumbles back away from him, wiping her mouth with her forearm. He doesn’t get the joke.

“Come on,” she asks once more, slowly edging her way towards the back of the cabin while keeping her eyes locked on him. She’s toying with the edge of her shirt and her voice has desperation in it, and does it make him a bad person to like that Commander Fucking Shepard is desperate for _him_?

“Shepard…” he starts, rolling excuses round in his head because he feels like he can’t let her keep _doing_ this ( _drink dance fuck forget_ ). But it’s just that it’s starting to feel like the end of the world nowadays and he wonders how many more times he’s going to be with her like this. Not as the Commander, not as the Hero of the Citadel, but just as _her_. Just as his beautiful Shepard, covered in sweat and full of drink and regret and want.

Plus she’s also already managed to get her shirt off, and in the end he’s still a man. So he walks over to her, kisses her hard and needy, and he can feel her sigh in relief.

They’re not in Alliance standard BDUs by any stretch of the imagination, but that doesn’t necessarily make it easier for them to get out of what they _are_ wearing. After all, they’ve had far more experience stripping out of those things in record time than anything else. Thankfully Shepard did half of the work for him, but after a few quick tugs at the pants plastered to her legs gives zero results he decides he’s going to need better leverage than he’s getting standing here, pressing her against the wall next to her desk.

“We’ve gotta move,” he says as he pulls away from the kiss, and only gets a disappointed groan in response. He gestures at the pants, offers: “Unless you can get those off standing here, that is.”

It’s then that she gets this look on her face that he’s seen a hundred times; it’s the look she gets after she cocks her weapon and comes out of cover to fire, the look she gets when she’s throwing mnemonics out so fast that the battlefield turns into a wave of biotic fire. It’s the look she gets when she’s determined, that’s what it is, and right now she’s damn determined to get her pants off.

It’s a tiny victory, watching her struggle until she’s got her back against the floor and her pants halfway down her thighs, laughing when she finds she’s having as much trouble as he was. Maybe it’s not going to bring Thessia back, but damn if it isn’t something.

Fortunately she’s gotten them down far enough, though, and in one great tug he manages to get them down to her ankles. She kicks at them until they’re in a pile at her feet, and then she’s just _there_ , lying on the floor of her cabin wearing nothing but underwear and an arm over her breasts and a smile.

He’s staring, and she notices. Narrows her eyes and smiles, removing her arm from over her chest. Damn. “Either put your tongue back in your mouth or do something with it, soldier.”

Yes ma’am.

Kaidan drops to her level, one knee on either side of her hips, before leaning down and grabbing the sides of her face with both hands as he lands a bruising kiss on her. Her hips press up eagerly against him as she groans into his mouth, her hands grabbing and twisting into his hair like he’s everything she needs, and he _wants_ to be that so desperately that he can’t help but feel his heart begin to race and pound in his chest.

An arm under her back persuades her into leaning up against him, and he sits back on his heels so he can look at her. On impulse his hand reaches out to hold her by the ribcage, his thumb grazing over a soft, pebbled nipple. “You know, I’m starting to feel a little overdressed.”

She huffs, blowing hair out of her eyes. “Then do something about it.”

“Alright,” he replies, a throaty half laugh ghosting the edges of it. “Thought you might want to help, but…”

But she’s already gone, lost in thought as she lies back on the cool floor. Her hands are kneading her own breasts languidly, gently, and her eyes are fixed on the skylight above as the stars fly past with flares of blue licking at the edges. As a kid the stars had always been a goal of sorts for him, a thing to be reached one day. Represented a place far from home. But then again he’s from earth - he wonders what they mean, you know, really _stand_ for, to her.

From the look on her face right now he’d guess a comfort, but hell, it’s not like she’s ever exactly been easy to read. Not with things like this.

He shucks his shirt off and drops it on her chest, snapping her out of her reverie. She doesn’t seem to mind. “That’s better,” her eyes trail down to his still very much on pants, “but I think you’re forgetting the most important part.”

“Help me, then,” he asks, his voice strained as he reaches for her hands and presses them against his trousers. He doesn’t like begging, but it’s like she’s not even here. Or cares that he’s here, for that matter – to be honest, he’s starting to feel like she’d be just as fine with any of the other guys he’d seen trying to cop feels on her at the bar. He hates himself for it, but the feeling’s there nonetheless.

The thing about them though is that, despite the fights, on some level they always understand each other. He understands that she’s got to work this out in her way, and from the look on her face and the way she’s fidgeting with his waistband, she’s starting to understand where he’s coming from too.

“Listen, I,” she begins, her words thick as she leans up and starts to unbuckle his belt. Her hands are unsteady, and he can tell it’s frustrating her. With an impatient sigh she drops her hands from the belt and instead grips his waist, looking at him with an apologetic gaze. “I’m sorry. With everything that’s happened, I guess I’m just—”

“You don’t need to give me a rousing speech, Shepard,” he interrupts, dropping his hands to unbuckle his own belt. Because he can tell that she gets him, and that’s all he really needs. “I get it. It’s okay.”

He sees relief in her smile. “I’m glad you’re here with me, Kaidan.”

Yeah, he’s glad he’s here too.

Her underwear comes off in a clean swipe, and after he manages to kick off his pants she just as easily divests him of his. When he falls back down over her he moans upon contact, the feeling of skin against skin like a small triumph. He knows the bed is just feet away, and she knows it too, but there’s an urgency in the way her hands are grabbing at him and it just doesn’t seem like there’s time.

There never seems like there’s been enough time, not for them.

So instead of bothering with moving he runs a hand up her thigh until it reaches juncture, and she’s already so wound up that the softest touch causes her to clench her thighs and buck her hips against him, her sex wet and warm against his hand.

All of Kaidan’s life he’s been a technical person. He likes fidgeting with things, figuring out what makes them tick. Likes the feeling of taking something in his hands and working out all of its kinks until it’s running smooth and purring like a kitten, and he likes to think he’d good at what he does.

This is what he likes to do with Shepard as well. Loves the feeling of pushing two fingers deep inside her and hooking them up as he presses the heel of his hand hard against her clit, a smile he can’t help but sport tugging at the edges of his mouth as she gasps in pleasure. Figuring out the best ways to push and twist and rub to get her off is a puzzle he loves solving, and just the thought of the feeling of her coming around his hand is enough to make him hard.

But Shepard? Well, Shepard has always been a soldier through and through. They might share a commonality in their biotics, but that’s where the similarities end. Hell, they barely even use those in the same way – it always seems like she’s just using them to make her booms bigger, to help her charge into the fray and level the battlefield with raw power. She used to tease him, saying that half of the time he’d still be planning out the battle while she was out there actually taking care of things. He would have been angry, but in the end it wasn’t completely untrue.

So right now when Shepard pushes his hand away and grabs at him, pleading and _begging_ for him to just fuck her, he’s not offended. It’s just how she likes to do things sometimes.

There’s little preamble in the way her pushes in to her; it’s hard, rough, and he can feel resistance as her back sticks to the floor underneath her. She doesn’t seem to mind, though, and maybe even likes it if the way her eyes have fluttered closed and her biotics have flared is any indication. Feeling her flare up always causes his own biotics to react in kind, and he can feel gravity twist and curve around them.

Surprisingly, he’d never been with another biotic before her. Probably some mental block (after all, he hadn’t exactly had the best track record with the last one he’d tried to impress), but it’d been surprising to her when he told her. Even more surprising to her had been the fact that he didn’t flare, not once, the first few times they’d been together. It’d been surprising to him that she _had_. Wasn’t she afraid?

_“Afraid of what?” she’d said as they’d lain in bed, sweat slicked and breathing hard. When he’d looked away instead of answering, she’d thrown on a sympathetic smile and run her hand over his chest. “Relax, lieutenant. I know you won’t hurt me.”_

It’s nice, being around someone who isn’t afraid of themselves. Or of him.

A breathy gasp breaks him out of his thoughts, and in return he gives a thrust that’s deep and sharp. The desk next to them shudders under the pull.

Yeah, it’s really fucking nice.

“Kaidan,” she groans into his neck, her arms tightening around his back and her fingernails digging into his shoulder blades. When he doesn’t slow his pace, she pulls back and looks him in the eyes. He knows that look. “Kaidan, I need—”

Slowing down causes a shudder to roll through him, so he squeezes his eyes shut for a moment before nodding. He gets it, understands that she needs to be in control at least once today. “Yeah, yeah. Okay.”

He slings an arm around her, pulling her close to his chest, before rolling over on to his back so she can straddle him. For a while she just grinds against him slowly, leaning over and pressing herself against his chest as she peppers his neck and shoulders with kisses. One of his hands runs up from the back of her thigh to settle at the small of her back, while the other moves to twist and tangle in her hair. Pulling gently, he disconnects her lips from his skin and redirects them to his mouth, and when she deepens the kiss his hips buck against her involuntarily.

“Hm, impatience,” she teases, biting softly at his lip. “What happened to maintaining control?”

“What can I say?” he interrupts, sliding his hand from the small of her back to grab at her ass. “You’re,” he’s fumbling his words like a teenager, “you’re—”

Her mouth crashes into his, and he feels her reposition. “At ease.”

With blessed urgency she reaches down, grasps him firmly, and with his name on her lips slides down over him until she’s flush against his hips. The sight of her is the stuff of legends – back arched as she leans over him with her hands flat against the floor on either side of his head; lips parted, flushed and wet from their kiss, with breath heavy and fast; breasts bouncing with every thrust as she rides him hard, grinding out her release with determination.

The skin on his back burns from friction, and he can already see red spots forming on her knees, but none of that matters as he thrusts up into her, matching her frantic pace as best he can. Her hair has fallen in front of her face and her eyes are squeezed shut in focus, and he gets it, he does, but he just wants…

He reaches up and pushes her hair out of her face, grabs her jaw and turns her face toward his. “Please, Shepard, please look at me, just for a second.”

Her eyes fly open, and he’s pretty sure he sees love there (there’s no harm in hoping, anyway).

When she comes it’s like a shock to her system, her muscles tensing and a corona sparking around her. She begs for his touch, grabbing at him so he’ll sit up and press himself against her, tangling his hands in her hair. So he’ll wrap an arm around her waist and hold her close as she rides out the waves of pleasure, kissing her sloppily as the feel of her breasts and the sound of her voice repeating his name pushes him over the edge along with her.

She looks at him, really looks him in the eyes, and he hopes she sees love there too (after all, he’s more in love with her than he really should be).

The bed, once they finally make their way over to it, is a welcome softness. They settle in and she curls up against him, slinging his arm over her and nestling her chin in the crook of his neck. It’s a lazy sort of comfortable, the kind where you might accidentally start thinking that maybe the next day you can sleep in, that maybe you can just stay in bed and fuck all day and not have to worry about reapers and husks and the problems of the galaxy.

Shepard doesn’t feel that way, though. He can feel it in the way her muscles are still tense and how she keeps sighing into his neck, twisting and trying to get comfortable but not able to. She’s drank and danced and fucked, but she can’t forget. Can’t deal with the fact that she can shoot a brute point blank in the face but can’t even look one of her best friends in the eyes.

Maybe, in the end, she _is_ a little bit afraid of herself. Kaidan might be scared of his what own mind can do, but Shepard? She’s terrified of the fact that she’s just as fallible and scared as the rest of them.

“You can’t do everything, you know,” he whispers as he pulls back to look at her. He doesn’t even really know what to say, if he’s being honest.

“I know,” she replies, eyes downcast, but it sounds more like it’s out of habit and not something she really believes. She then breathes in deeply, shaking her head. “But she’s my friend. I should at least be able to do this.”

Her makeup is still smudged under her eyes, so he runs a thumb under one of them to wipe it off. If he feels wetness there, he’ll never let her know.

“Don’t worry,” he says with confidence, and likes the way it seems to make her instantly relax. “You will.”

That seems to settle her down, at least enough for now. A kiss on his neck sends a chill over him, and her breath against his skin is soothing and warm. “Goodnight, Kaidan.”

He replies in kind, and then closes his eyes. Sees the ghosted images of stars on the back of his eyelids as he starts to drift off to sleep, and as he does he imagines her with mussed hair and sleepy eyes, a leg slung over his waist. Imagines a clock ticking lazily over into late morning on a day with nothing to do, and her voice begging him to stay in bed as the sun spills in over them.

**

The next morning she’s gone before he wakes up, and when he finally finds her she’s with Liara in starboard obs, looking out at the stars and holding the asari’s hand as she cries.

**Author's Note:**

> See original prompt and post [here](http://masseffectkink.livejournal.com/3710.html?thread=8473726#t8473726).  
> 


End file.
